PAKISTAN: IHC COMMUTES DEATH PENALTY OF TWO CONVICTS TO LIFE TERM IN OSAMA SATTI MURDER CASE

The Islamabad High Court on January 22, 2025 commuted the death sentence of two convicts in Osama Satti murder case to life imprisonment and acquitting three others.
A two-member IHC bench, comprising Justices – Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan – announced its verdict on appeals filed by the five convicts in Osama Satti murder case.
According to the court ruling, death penalty of – Iftikhar Ahmed and Muhammad Mustafa – commuted to life sentence, while Saeed Ahmed, Shakeel Ahmed, and Mudassir Mukhtar were acquitted of all charges.
The case involved the fatal shooting of Osama Satti, a young man killed by police officers. Earlier, the convicted officers had challenged their sentences, leading to the high court’s revised ruling.
On January 2, 2021, at around 2 am, Osama had gone to drop his friend in Sector H-11. When he was returning, the police officials had intercepted his vehicle in Sector G-10, Srinagar Highway and fired at him from all sides.
The police claimed that they had tried to stop a suspicious vehicle with tinted windows and opened fire when the driver did not stop.
The incident spread like wildfire on the micro-blogging site as micro-bloggers lashed out at the ‘police brutality’ and ‘fake encounter.’